


His Heart's Normal Rhythm

by AlwaysJohn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gentle, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-14 00:59:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18042437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysJohn/pseuds/AlwaysJohn
Summary: Within Sherlock's embrace.





	His Heart's Normal Rhythm

**Author's Note:**

> In an effort to resuscitate my muse.

It was just past midnight when Sherlock stepped out of the cab and glanced up to the flat windows. A barely visible soft glow from within, a sign that John hadn’t waited up for him, gave him a twinge of disappointment, but did little to temper the adrenaline rush he’d run on all day. 

On the days that John worked at the surgery, he wilted, falling asleep in his chair before ten. The thought of it and the accompanying visual of his slumbering doctor made him smile.

Sentiment. Before John, he’d disparaged the notion, but he was a wiser, better man now, freely acknowledging that he quite adored the feeling and to the core of his being, loved the man who stayed.

Sherlock entered without a sound, securing the door behind him. Not a single creak upset the silence as he ascended the seventeen stairs and closed both landing doors.

After hanging his coat and scarf, Sherlock made his way to the bedroom. John lay curled on his side, nearly buried beneath the duvet and didn’t stir when he gathered his pyjama trousers and a T-shirt. He thought about waking him to relate the details of the solved case, but John’s voice in his head told him to sod off and let him sleep, and so he swallowed a laugh that threatened to escape. 

In the end he stood beside the bed, his gaze fixed on John as he slept. After several minutes, he sighed and retreated to the bath. He imagined John patting his head and saying, “That’s my beautiful boy.” Sherlock smiled, as he dropped his clothes in a pile on the floor and slipped into the shower.

Although he favoured long, leisurely showers, this night the thought of wrapping himself around his doctor offered the better gift at the end of a difficult day. Ten minutes later, he stepped out of the shower, quickly toweled himself off, and dressed, taking care to dry his hair to barely damp.

A pitiful whimper drew Sherlock to the bed where John now lay uncovered, the bedding in disarray, as if he’d been thrashing about, and with no one to comfort him, curled into the foetal position. 

A nightmare. Not one of the violent ones; he hadn’t had one of those in an age. Those erupted without warning, like a sucker punch, as John had remarked after the last one. Still, even the disconcerting, non-violent dreams, also rare now, sometimes left him lost and afraid. Although Sherlock remained alert, constantly, he’d found no credible clues or behaviours to predict an impending storm. Still, he kept a weather eye, gathering data for John’s place in his Mind Palace. 

It’s what he did now, to always to protect John. 

“Sherlock, no, don’t,” John cried out.

Sherlock eased onto the bed as near to John as possible, resting his palm along John’s jaw, feathering his thumb over his cheek.

“Shh, it’s all right, John. I’m here now. No worries.”

“Sherlock?” John whispered back, reaching for him, pressing his hand over his heart, allowing Sherlock to unfurl him from his self-protective protected cocoon and gather him against his body.

“Oh, come here, John,” he crooned in a tender voice. “It was just a dream. It’s okay now.”

“Sherlock?”

“Yes, John.”

“Don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” Sherlock whispered against his ear when John pressed his face into his shoulder. “Breathe, John, slow and easy.”

Soon John melted against him, boneless within his embrace, his breathing calm and his heartbeat once more in its normal rhythm, as sleep circled around him.

“Sherlock?” 

“Right here.”

“You were gone a long time, almost all day?”

“Yes. I had hoped to arrive home before you, but things got in the way. I am sorry.”

“So-kay. Didja solve it?” 

John’s words slurred; sleep would take him shortly, Sherlock knew.

“Of course,” Sherlock whispered against John’s ear.

“Yay, you.”

Sherlock squeezed John until he groaned. “Go to sleep, John, we’ll talk in the morn, well, I should say, later this morning.”

Snug in Sherlock’s arm, John sighed, nodded off. Sherlock joined him at once.


End file.
